


Duo's Lie

by Thistlerose



Series: On the Blind Side of the Heart [7]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: F/M, M/M, POV First Person, Post-Canon, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-10
Updated: 2012-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-29 08:23:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/317767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duo has something that belongs to Heero, but, for a number of reasons, he's reluctant to give it to him.  Set immediately after "Endless Waltz."  Written in 2000.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Duo's Lie

What's this?”

He stares at the disk like I'm trying to hand him something disgusting. This isn't going to be easy. I look out over the city. For such an important city, it feels strangely empty. At least from the balcony of the hotel we've all been staying at for the last two weeks. I shouldn't have waited so long. Should have done this when I still had some backup. Too late, now. “It's something I've been holding onto for a long time. Take it.” He doesn't move. “Go on. It's yours, Heero.”

“But what is it?”

“Play it and see.”

He squints at me suspiciously. “You viewed it?”

I actually have to reach over, put the disk in his hand, and fold his fingers around it. Pathetic. But he's been a ghost of himself since he shot Marie Maia Khushrenada with an empty gun two weeks ago. (Still don't know whether or not he knew the gun was empty. Says he'll tell me if I can ever come up with a good enough reason for knowing. He can be such an idiot, sometimes.) Maybe I should be grateful for the apathy, since it'll make whupping my ass that much harder for him when he finally DOES view that disk and finds out that I lied--or that I'm about to lie. The only lie I'll ever tell. I can't be grateful, though. He's staring at the disk again, not at me. Maybe I won't have to lie. Don't ask any questions, Heero.

But of course he says--‘cause I guess he has to--“Where did you get this?”

I shove my hands into my jeans' pockets. “Dr. J,” I mumble.

“What?”

“Dr. J,” I say so he can actually hear me. “Pincer-fingers. He gave it to me before he and the rest of the Freak Quintet went kaboom on Peacemillion. Said it was something that belonged to you, and it was about time you had it back.”

He glances from the disk to my face--wary. “It's another mission.” Not a question. I'm not saying nothin'. “Why didn't you give this to me, before, after we destroyed Libra and Peacemillion?”

A fudge isn't really a lie, is it? “I was going to, after we all landed on MO2. I _meant_ to. But things were still kinda crazy. You remember. I waved to you, but you just sort of wandered off alone--as usual.” He makes a non-committal-Heero sound. “And then, well, Quatre was bleeding to death, thanks to that Catalonia bitch. Jeez, if you'd seen Trowa's face, you'd have forgotten all about you, too.”

*

God, that was scary, thinking that after all that, after we'd WON, we still might have lost Quatre--of all people. Scarier than the battle we'd just fought. I'd been about to go after Heero--didn't know if I was going to give him the disk or not, then--but I heard someone screaming my name. Didn't sound like Trowa. But when I turned, there he was, shouldering his way past twenty Maganacs all crowded around Sandrock, Quatre in his arms, the pale blond head bobbing limply against his arm.

My first thought--as my stomach dropped through the floor--was, _Oh, God. He's dead._ Then I saw the hand clutching the collar of Trowa's flight suit, and his mouth was moving like he was trying to say something Trowa was either ignoring or didn't hear, and I thought, Jeez, heart failure.

“Duo,” Trowa shouted, “what's your blood type?”

Like I knew.

Between us we got Quatre to MO2's tiny, overcrowded, understaffed infirmary where we waited for a doctor and tried to keep the kid from bleeding to death. Trowa babbled, which--looking back, now--was almost amusing. “Did you know,” he said while he checked Quatre's bandages for the fourth--maybe it was the fifth--time, “I didn't even have to crack open Sandrock's hatch? And--he--couldn't have done it. It just opened when I got there. I think-I think it was Sandrock himself...itself...”

Sandrock opened its own hatch so someone could rescue his hurt pilot? That was cute, but not so surprising--that Quatre could inspire protectiveness in a mindless hunk of gundanium. Sometimes I wonder what Deathscythe thought about ME.

Didn't say that, though. Not when Trowa had suddenly discovered that he DID have emotions, and seemed to be trying to exercise them ALL at once. Watching the two of them I wanted to say all kinds of stupid things like no god in Hell would be cruel enough to let Quatre die, now. But I couldn't lie. I felt pretty damn useless, just waiting and listening to Trowa chant, “It'll be all right, Quatre”, over and over like a mantra, but I had to do something. I slid an arm under Quatre's back, lifting his head so it rested against my shoulder. His eyes were closed. He hadn't opened them or said a word since we'd laid him out on a desk in an empty office. I couldn't tell if he could hear me or not, but I said, more for mine and Trowa's benefit than anything else, “Stick around, Boss. I still have that bottle of expensive champagne chilling on Deathscythe.”

And then--he opened his eyes, blinked up at me, and said, very solemnly, “It's non-alcoholic, right, Duo?” I could have kissed him--but I figured I'd better leave that to Trowa, who was looking as if he REALLY wanted to.

And then this BATTALION of doctors came thundering into the room, a red-faced and shouting Rashid and the rest of Quatre's posse hot on their heels.

Of course I forgot about Heero.

*

Remembering Heero's still giving me his vulture look, I say, maybe a little too brightly, “Hey--did you know about Q and--?”

“You're changing the subject.”

You bet yer ass I am. Innocently: “Me?”

Vulture Look. Good thing he isn't armed. “You had this a year, though, and you didn't tell me...”

“I forgot!” There's half a lie. “After Quatre, there was still Hilde. After everything she did for me--for us--I wasn't about to up and leave her. I had to make sure she was all right.”

*

‘Making sure she was all right' involved sitting with her until she opened her eyes again--three days later. Let me tell you, forget your romantic notions; there is nothing more boring than watching a person in a coma. But every time I tried to get up--check on Quatre, go find Heero, get some goddamn fresh air--I couldn't. Can't explain it, either. There wasn't anything I could do, but for some reason the thought of her waking up to anyone except me--or alone--or if anything HAPPENED while I wasn't there, kept me cemented to that chair for seventy hours straight. I mean, this was the girl who'd saved my life, given me a place to stay--and who'd broiled me a steak when I'd jokingly asked her to. I'd always thought of her as tough, but she looked so tiny and fragile lying there. My stupid hair probably weighed more than she did. And you know what the craziest thing was? I'd come up with a whole list of things I could say when she woke, like:  
“Good thing you're awake, kiddo. Now I can finally catch up on all the cartoons I'm missing.”

Or:

“You stupid idiot! What the hell were you thinking sneaking onto Libra and almost getting yourself killed??”

Or,

“I saved some champagne for you, Hildy-gard. Managed to keep Quatre from guzzling it all.”

But when she finally did open her eyes, I forgot all of that. (And if I could forget all that, how was I supposed to remember I had something of Heero Yuy's?) She sort of half-smiled up at me and said, in a defiant-little-girl voice, like she was afraid I was still mad at her (I was), but determined not to show it, “Hey, Duo.”

And all I could think was, _I've never seen eyes so blue._ And that kissing her was a lot more fun than kissing Quatre would have been.

*

Oops. Almost forgot Vulture Look again. “Anyway,” I say, as though there hadn't been that long pause, “What with one thing and another, I never got around to it.” I sigh again.  
It's pointless hedging around a face like that. “Go view it.”

His brows draw together to make a little line between them. “Watch it with me.” It sounds almost like a question, kind of tilted upward at the end, you know? So there IS a crack in his titanium foundation, after all. Is this good or bad for me?

“No, ummm...”

Suddenly suspicious: “You DID watch it, didn't you?”

“No,” I lie. It's easier than I thought it would be. The world doesn't end, at any rate.  
“No, I didn't.” Does it matter if the God of Death goes to Hell? Isn't it sort of pre-ordained, anyway?

“Well, come on.” He turns toward the lighted doorway. And I'm supposed to follow.

*

So, I lied to Heero. I viewed the disk and I know what's on it. It's nothing really bad. Well, maybe not. No telling how Heero really thinks. If it were me, I don't think I'd really care. Maybe feel--I don't know. Used?

There's a reason I viewed the disk, even though Dr. J told me not to--said it was for Heero's eyes, only. It's actually a good reason. I didn't like Dr. J, not even after he and the rest of the Freak Quintet blew up Peacemillion, which bumped the wrecked Libra off its collision course with Earth and thereby saved humanity. They'd used all of us Gundam pilots one way or another. Do you really think I'd cared so much about the real Heero Yuy, the leader of the Colonies who'd been assassinated five years before I was even born? I didn't want revenge on Earth. But I was damned if I let anyone else but me pilot Deathscythe. And I wasn't about to let Operation Meteor happen. They knew what we'd see, what we'd have to do. It's hard to be angry on my own behalf. Given the choice, I'd rather fight so people--like Hilde--don't have to. But it's a lot easier to be angry for guys like Quatre, Trowa, even Heero and Wufei.

So, the reason for viewing the disk. I didn't trust Dr. J. Didn't know what he had in mind for Heero.

“It's one last mission you bastards want to send him on!” I'd yelled at them. “One last building he has to blow up, one last person he has to kill. Do your own dirty for once!” I remember thinking, at the same time, Jeez, Maxwell, when did you become Heero's mother?

“We'll do our dirty work as soon as you let us off on Peacemillion,” said Mushroom Hair--Dr. G--sounding the way I'd imagined a rat would, kind of scratchy and...sneer-y. “You just see that this gets to Heero Yuy. And don't WORRY.”

Dr. J put the disk in my hand--much the way I'd put it in Heero's on the balcony--and then the five of them floated out into space through the open airlock.

So, I watched it, a little while after Hilde woke up. I had to make sure I really didn't have a reason to worry. And after I'd watched it, I wished I hadn't.

It wasn't bad. Well, maybe not. It wasn't a mission, anyway. No final kamikaze stunt.  
But suddenly I hadn't wanted him to see what was on that disk. There are reasons for that, too, not quite as good as my reason for viewing the damn thing.

*

The first reason is walking toward us right now.

“Heero,” says Relena, and her big lavender eyes go all sparkly. She's grown on me, I have to admit. That pink car of hers was a turn-off at first, but she's been so good to Heero since the Marie Maia thing. Heh. Now that he DOESN'T want to kill her, she's sort of backed off, too, become less aggressive. And she's been pretty good to me, taking care of my room and board until I figure out where the heck I'm going now that there's no more Deathscythe. She's been doing a good job as a spokeswoman for peace. People listen to her. I have to hand her that.

“Relena,” he says. Is that a smile? Well, well. “I have something I think you need to see.”

It strikes me that he trusts her this much. I guess persistence pays. Now I really wish I'd tossed the disk out the airlock after Dr. J when I'd had the chance.

*

This is what's on the disk. No point dragging out the scene. I want to get going. It's about ten seconds long, the recording. A long ten seconds. Heero sits by the computer. I can't see his face. Relena's by his shoulder. I'm standing back a few paces, so I can maybe bolt if I have to. Over Heero's shoulder, the screen is filled with Dr. J's grey face. Big black lenses hide his eyes--if he really has eyes. I never knew. I already know what he says. I'm watching Heero. Watching for a reaction--any kind of reaction. He doesn't move. The tension is all in Relena's shoulders; the little gasp--that's hers. He doesn't say anything.

Dr. J says, “Heero Yuy, if you are watching this recording, my colleagues and I are dead. Your name is Akatsuki Taro. Your mission is accomplished.”

The recording stops.

A hundred years later, Heero turns, looks up at me. “You knew.” How did he know? Well, he's Heero Yuy; he knows everything. He knows me, anyway. So my one lie means exactly jack. I don't say anything. Can't.

He looks up at Relena. “I have to leave,” he says.

And that's the other reason it took me a year to show him that disk.

*

Somehow I knew he'd go. And I--didn't want that. Not for myself, so much. And not for Relena. Well, not really. For him. Somehow I can't stand the idea of him still out there wandering. If he can't stop and be at peace, it doesn't seem right that the rest of us can.  
\It's not really over, now.

We're out in the yard now, in front of the hotel. It's a little before true nightfall. There are already a few stars out, and the moon is high above the horizon, which is still wispy lavender-blue. Not too many lights on in the hotel behind us. It's cool out, getting cooler. The wind is starting to pick up. I want to be inside.

Relena and Heero are talking a few yards away. A thin beam of moonlight falls down on Relena's face. I can't see Heero's face at all. I think I know what they're saying to one another. Well, what he's saying. “Hnh.” And, “Relena.” She's probably telling him he can stay if he wants to. Of course he wants to, Relena. Who do you think he saved the galaxy for? Besides, wandering is tiring. Even he gets tired. But he won't stay. Now that he has a name he has to find out who he is. Find out if there are any other Akatsukis in the world. It's nice to belong.

So, where do I belong?

She leans very close to him, into the shadow of his face. Kisses his cheek. Whispers something else. Turns away. It's not fair. She loves him, and she's going to let him go. I feel like I swallowed something awful. Something I made. Heero turns, too, now, toward me, and the moonlight touches his face. “Duo,” he says.

So I'm not getting off that easily. Well, I deserve whatever I get, I guess. It's not a good thing I've done today. I walk up to him. He has a satchel over his shoulder.

“I'm sorry,” I say, and I really mean it. Nothing from him. “Just don't hit me,” I try to laugh, getting ready for a blow of some kind.

“I'm not angry, Duo.”

“You should stay,” I say quickly, glancing at Relena. Now her face is in shadow. “I told Trowa that a name is just something someone calls you. It's true.”

He sighs. “Maybe it's true if you know who you are, where you belong. I don't. I've been in limbo for the past two weeks. Heero Yuy was a killer. I can't kill anymore. Akatsuki Taro is an innocent, but I don't remember anything of my life as him. You all know me as Heero. I can't be Taro and be here, too. I don't know if I want to be Taro again, if I even can. I don't know if I can still be Heero. But I have to find out. You knew that. But why didn't you want me to know?”

Why, indeed? I'm tired of explaining. I've held onto all of it for a year, and now that HE wants to know, I can't say it all. So I say, instead--and this is true, too, “I knew this would happen. And, well, I didn't want you to ditch us just yet. You're my best friend.”  
He looks at me. I mean, really looks. Wide-eyed. I didn't think Heero could BE shocked. Then the glower returns. “I don't have friends.”

“After all this?” I practically shout. I grip his shoulders. Can't help it. Now I'm angry with HIM, not just myself. If he doesn't know by now-- “Yes. You. Do.” I punctuate each word with a shake. Before Marie Maia, this would have earned me a punch in the gut. I say, again, “You do.” I must have let him go more violently than I'd intended; he staggers a little. His eyes are wide again with amazement. I'm living to see this? “Oh, come off it,” I say, trying to work some laughter into my voice (not easy). I shouldn't pick on him right now. “Deep down, you know you kinda, sorta like all of us, too. Even me.” Still nothing. Okay, now I'm starting to wonder! “Don't you?? You saved my life, once!”

“Twice.”

“Right, well, didn't you do it for a REASON?”

“I was going to kill you,” he says, in this soft voice, like he's amazed by something he thought he'd forgotten. He's looking off into space, now, not at me.

“Ehh...yeah. But...you couldn't bring yourself to do it, right? That meant something!”

“Yeah,” he says, looking up, “I was out of my mind.” And he almost smiles! Almost!  
It's actually kind of frightening. (I wonder if Akatsuki Taro will turn out to be the kind of guy who smiles a lot? And talks in more than monosyllables?)

“Look,” I say, “if you need a place to stay, ever, look me up.” Funny--I'm talking about a home I don't have. Don't I?

“Duo... Thanks.”

“You're thanking me? It must be the apocalypse.” It's easier to joke. “Good thing I'm here. Still, there was a lot I wanted to do before the end...”

“Hhn.”

Which is Heero-talk for _“Don't push it, Duo.”_ As he starts to walk away, Relena comes to stand by me. Part of me wants her to run after him. I know she wants to. But she won't. Both of us know that he's not ready to belong to anyone, yet. Not until he finds out who he wants to be. We watch him go, together, not saying anything until the tiny dot of his spaceship has been lost in the stars. He's really gone.

“What did you say to him?” I ask Relena. Her face is tilted upward, watching. She can't still see him, can she? Her hair falls back from her face. She's really pretty. I guess I noticed that before.

“Oh,” she says. “I told him what you told him. That whatever he finds out about himself, he can always come back to me. He doesn't have to. But he can, any time he wants.” She sighs.

“Relena, I'm sorry. I knew he'd go if I told him. And I guess I didn't really have to.”  
“Yes, you did,” she says, turning to me at last. I guess she lost sight of him. Her cheeks are wet. “How can you keep someone's name from them? Of course you had to tell him. You're too honest not to. Yes, you are,” she says, when I start to protest. “Even when you lie.”

We stand that way for a long time. It really is getting colder. But it won't be spring for a long time, still. She shivers. “You should go inside,” I say.

“I will.” She looks up at me, sharply, all of a sudden. “And you should go home, Duo.”

“I don't have a home,” I say. I'm thinking, Maybe I could crash with Quatre for a while, see what the rich life is like. He went back to his family's home on L4 six days ago, and he convinced Trowa to go with him, that sly devil. Might be fun to play matchmaker for those two, find out how many different shades of red I can make Blondie turn before I'm kicked out--although, if my experience with Heero and Relena is any indication, I massively suck at it. Still, he wouldn't say no. Or maybe Sally Po could use another Preventer. But I don't really want to hang out with Wufei, now that he's all into Lady Catalonia. I know I'd say something stupid (but true) and maybe making turn him evil all over again. But, really, I don't WANT to be a Preventer. Now that I've discharged my last duty, I don't want to get caught up in that life again, not for a while, anyway. Deathscythe is gone, too, but I don't feel a real loss. I feel a...release. Everything that kept me with these guys--besides friendship--is gone. And I'm TIRED. I want my OWN place. Want to look into the face of a person who's missed me, who's been thinking of me only. Well...

Relena smiles gently. “I think you do. And from the stunned look on your face, you know it, too.” Ooh, I've been hanging around this girl too long. That's a Duo-ism if ever I heard one. She stands on tiptoe to kiss my cheek. “Good night, Duo.”

Then she's gone, too, into the hotel, and I'm alone outside.

Well, maybe not really alone.

Because there IS someone who'll be happy to see me stagger through her door at six in the morning--which is what time it'll be when I finally get there, if I leave now. I glance up at the stars. There's a last thin bar of daylight blue floating on the horizon, thinning, and disappearing into the darkening night. I stand there, watching until it's gone completely, just kind of enjoying the evening and the fact that for the first time in a long time, I know where I want to be. The concrete path that goes from the hotel shimmers lavender-grey in the moonlight. Suddenly I want to be running, into the night and away.

But not aimlessly.

Good night, Relena. Don't wait up for Heero. He'll be back, I hope, but not soon. And good luck, Heero-Taro. I hope what you find is what you want to find--what we all want to find.

Me, I know where I want to be right now. I'm going there. All my worldly possessions are in a duffel bag at my feet. I travel light. I'm sitting in the cockpit of one of Relena's shuttles, thinking about all this. It feels right, so it is right. I set my coordinates for a distant colony where there's a light in a window and a blue-eyed girl waiting for me.

*

Not The End:

Since you've stuck with me this far, I guess you deserve to know the ending. Not everyone's ending--I can't tell you about Heero, Relena, Trowa, Quatre, Wufei, or any of the others. I can't even tell you where they are, right now. I don't know. I only know where I am. This is my ending:

Only, it's not really an ending.

It's just past dawn when I dock my shuttle on that distant colony where my blue-eyed girl lies sleeping. There are still a few stars out. It's cold out here on the landing platform, and misty. The air holds a kind of cidery-crispness. It's the kind of air that it almost hurts to inhale, but it tastes so damn good.

So I'm running again, through the brand new day, and the air is tearing my lungs to ribbons and it's GREAT. I'm so damn tired I can't even feel tired, anymore. You know what I mean? It's like my legs are made of rubber, and I'm sort of aware that my feet must be touching ground, but I can't really feel the pavement beneath me. And there's the house, that tiny square shoebox of a house, and I'm on the doorstep. The key's in the lock. I'm in. It's good to be inside, nice as the morning was. I let my bag slide down my back to the floor.

It's quiet. Well, it's still very early. I cross the floor, kicking off my boots, to the closed bedroom door, open it slowly.

Pale sunlight streams though the lavender curtains, warming the yellow wood floor, and giving the room a sort of sneezy lemony-woody scent. She's curled up asleep, one hand tucked under her cheek on the pillow, a little smile curving her pink lips. Wonder what she's dreaming. Oh, hell, she's even wearing that gigantic, fuzzy red sweater she's had for about forever. She's just so cute, like a little cuddly kitten. (Can't believe I just said “cuddly”!) My chest hurts, like when I was inhaling the sharp, fresh air on the landing platform.

I sit down beside her on the bed, trying not to rock it. I could kiss her awake, or tweak her nose, or cup that little smile in my hands and breathe it brighter. But as I lean forward, plan of attack still undecided, my stupid braid flops down over my shoulder and-- _whump_ \--bashes her in the nose. Okay, Mr. Cool I sometimes am not.

She wrinkles her nose, kind of mumbles without opening her eyes, “Hey, Duo.” Then, “Duo!”, sitting bolt upright, plum-black bangs falling out of her wide blue eyes. In that morning light, with that surprised/disbelieving/joyful smile on her face, she's prettier than Relena Peacecraft. “It's really you! I wasn't dreaming. You came back!”

I'm so tired, but I have enough strength to lift her into my arms and kiss her lips softly. Her slender arms go around my neck and her cheek brushes mine. “Of course I came back, dumb Hilde.” Hurts to talk. If I start to cry, this little story is over, y'hear? “This is where I live.”

THE END  
9/25/00 (revised 9/25/02)


End file.
